Every shop in town put together has 935 coins a day to spend, and a single sermon can pay nine thousand. That gap is the whole subject, and it is why grinding goods to sell is the slowest way to get rich in Graveyard Keeper 2.
The prices you see on items are valuations rather than offers. Of the sixty-four things in the game worth a thousand coins or more, twenty-seven have no buyer anywhere, and twenty-one of the rest are waiting on a shop you have not upgraded yet.
What follows is where the coins come from, in the order you can reach them.
The town pays three quarters, and runs out of money
Two rules govern every sale you make. The town pays three quarters of an item’s listed value when the shop is normally stocked, and each shop holds a limited purse that refills by a fixed amount each day.
That fraction moves with the shelf. A shop short of something pays more for it, rising toward the full listed price and never going above, and a shop already holding plenty pays less. Fish, tools, weapons, bags and certificates ignore the whole arrangement and always pay exactly what they are listed at.
A town shop starts with a hundred coins and earns twenty a day at its first tier, fifty at its second and a hundred at its third. Twelve shops on that scale, plus Herm, the Head of the Village, the Astrologer and the warehouse, come to 935 coins a day across the whole town, rising to 1,800 once everything is at tier three.
The warehouse manager alone holds five thousand coins and earns five hundred a day, which is more than half the town’s entire budget. If you have something valuable and a buyer who will take it, he is the one who can pay.
That ceiling does not move with your production. You can build a workshop that turns out a hundred plates an hour and the town will still only hand over its daily allowance in coins.
What the purse does not cap is the size of a deal. Only the difference between the two sides of a trade is ever checked, so a counter holding twenty coins will take a thirty five thousand coin item in exchange for a basket he can afford of his own stock.
Most valuable things need the shop upgraded first
There are 253 items a shop will buy, and only 132 of them have a buyer at the tier every shop starts on. The rest are waiting on an upgrade you pay for, which is why an expensive thing can look unsellable for most of a playthrough and still have a counter waiting for it.
A 
Steel Sword is valued at twenty-five thousand and the blacksmith buys it once he reaches his third tier. 
Steel Armor is the same. A 
Golden ingot needs the jeweler at his second tier, and a 
Steel Zombie Collar needs him at his third.
Twenty-seven of those sixty-four expensive items have no buyer at any tier at all. A 
Golden Talisman at twenty-five thousand is one of them, a set of 
Steel tools another, and the 
Pro Rod the fisherman will happily sell you for ten thousand is the one that stings.
At fifty thousand 
Fine Jewelry is the most valuable thing you can sell, and the jeweler pays 35,755 for the first one while he is on his first or second tier, because he opens holding ten of his own and a sale is priced against what he already has. Upgrade him to his third and that offer collapses to a single coin. His purse is the other half of the problem, because he earns a hundred a day at best and spends most of it restocking his own shelves.
Read a high price as a measure of effort rather than an invitation. Where an expensive item has a use, that use is almost always the point of making it.
Town orders pay happiness, not coins
The shops post orders for crates of goods and it is easy to read them as the game’s trading system. They are not. Seventy-three of the seventy-four orders in the game pay their reward in happiness, and none of them pays money.
An urgent crate is worth twenty to fifty happiness depending on the shop’s tier, and a relaxed one rather less. That is worth having, because happiness is what fills your church, but it will not buy anything directly.
Each shop also lists goods it wants supplied, at a fixed happiness rate per unit. The blacksmith takes forty 
Bronze Scrap for four happiness, and twenty 
Bronze Ingot for the same four, which is the better trade by weight of effort.
The church out-earns the entire town
A sermon pays coins per attendee and no vendor is involved, so none of the daily limits above apply to it. That single fact makes the church the largest income in the game by a distance.
Money Prayer at three stars pays thirty coins a head and wants fifty listeners, which is fifteen hundred coins for one sermon. Prayer for Old God pays fifty a head to a congregation of a hundred and eighty, and that is nine thousand coins from a single afternoon.
Set that against the 935 coins the whole town can spend in a day and the comparison stops being close. Everything written above about margins and efficient goods is a rounding error next to filling the pews.
Holding too many zombies applies a debuff that cuts the reward on thirty-two of the fifty-eight sermons, dropping a basic prayer from five coins a head to two. The Hypno Prayer switches it off and nothing else does.
What to sell, early and late
The Head of the Village is the best counter in the game for a graveyard keeper, because he buys the one thing your job produces. A 
Burial Certificate I is a hundred, the second tier two hundred and fifty and the third five hundred. Certificates are one of the kinds that pay their full listed price, so a Burial Certificate III puts five hundred coins in your hand and not three hundred and seventy-five.
He carries seventy-five coins a day at first and two hundred once the town has grown, so certificates are a steady trickle rather than a windfall. He will also sell you an 
Exhumation Certificate for five hundred and fifty and 
Printed Money once he reaches his third tier.
Town Gratitude sits on his counter at a thousand coins each, and he is explicitly barred from buying it. It converts coins into happiness, never the other way around, so the ones you earn from quests and prayers are worth keeping rather than cashing.
Beyond that, the blacksmith takes bronze and iron tools, an 
Iron Shovel at 1,750 being the best of them, and the fisherman takes eighteen of the twenty-two fish. An 
Eel at 192 is the most any fish is worth, and the four trophy fish are worth nothing at a counter because nobody buys them. Ten of those eighteen are all he will take at his first tier, and the eight better ones wait on his second.
Graveyard Keeper 2 money FAQ
What is the fastest way to make money in Graveyard Keeper 2?
Preach. A sermon pays coins per attendee with no shop involved, so none of the daily limits apply: a three star Money Prayer is thirty coins a head to fifty listeners, and Prayer for Old God is fifty a head to a hundred and eighty. The whole town can only spend 935 coins a day between every shop it has.
Why will the shop not buy my expensive item?
Usually because the shop that buys it has not been upgraded yet. There are 253 items a shop will buy and only 132 have a buyer at the tier every shop starts on, so the blacksmith takes a Steel Sword at his third tier and the jeweler takes a Golden ingot at his second. Twenty-seven of the sixty-four items worth a thousand or more have no buyer at any tier, among them a Golden Talisman, a set of Steel tools and the Pro Rod.
Why did the shop run out of money?
Each shop holds a purse that refills by a set amount daily: twenty coins a day at its first tier, fifty at its second, a hundred at its third. The warehouse manager is the exception at five hundred a day on five thousand held, which makes him the only counter that can absorb anything large.
How much do vendors pay compared to the listed price?
Three quarters of it, when the shop is normally stocked. A shop that is short of something pays more, rising toward the full listed price and never going above it, and an overstocked one pays less. Fish, tools, weapons, bags and certificates sit outside that entirely and always pay in full, so a Burial Certificate III listed at five hundred puts five hundred in your pocket.
Do town orders give money?
No. Seventy-three of the seventy-four orders pay happiness and none pays coins. They are worth doing because happiness fills your church and the church is where the money is, but the crates themselves buy nothing.
What should I sell early on?
Burial certificates to the Head of the Village, since your graveyard produces them anyway: a hundred, two hundred and fifty and five hundred by grade, and certificates pay in full rather than at three quarters. After that the blacksmith takes bronze and iron tools and the fisherman takes eighteen of the twenty-two fish, the Eel at 192 being the best of them.
Should I sell Town Gratitude?
You cannot. The Head of the Village sells it at a thousand coins and is explicitly barred from buying it back, so it turns money into happiness and never the reverse. Keep the ones quests and prayers give you.
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